The food court
by planet p
Summary: AU; Lyle meets someone he knows at the shopping mall.
1. Chapter 1

**The food court** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

"It's a smaller world than you know," the woman said, her tone derisive.

He kept walking.

"Aren't we the friendly type, rich boy," she called after him, amused and mocking.

He turned back to face her. "What do you want, Yumiko?"

She grinned. "Can't an old friend say 'hiya' to another old friend, old friend?"

He laughed. "Is that what this is?"

She tossed her head. "Sureya, honey!"

He shook his head. Was there any reason he had to stick around for this crap? He didn't think so. "Your father's in the country; he dropped by a while ago. Just so you know, I didn't say anything, I reckon that's your call, _honey_."

She sighed. "Alright, you psycho, why don't you buy me an ice-cream. You're good for it, no? You work?"

He walked off, towards the food court.

She hurried to catch up. "Are you with anyone?" she asked, conversationally.

"Yeah: you."

She grinned. "What is it with you these days, Bobby?"

"'These days'?" he laughed, shooting her a doubtful look. Oh, because they knew each other _so_ well. So what, they'd gone to 'summer camp' together! What the Hell did that mean, anyway! "These days, I don't go by 'Bobby'!"

"Sure thing, Robert!"

He glared at her. "Lyle."

She laughed out loud. "Why don't you change your name to Crazy? I like that much better! It suits you, too, I reckon."

He looked away from her, refusing to comment on that. It wasn't his issue if she didn't like his name, he hadn't chosen it to please her, or, in fact, to please anyone.

"So why'd you waste those girls anyway?" she asked.

He didn't reply. So he was getting her an ice-cream, he was under no obligation to talk to her.

She scowled, her eyes widening. "Then why'd you fucking say you did?"

He stopped and turned to her abruptly. "Why not?"

She laughed. "'_Why not_,' you fucking lunatic? Maybe because it's a lie! Maybe because lying to the _authorities_ is an _offence_ – punishable by _law_! The same as _murder_! Are you even _sane_?"

"Nope."

She glared at him deathly. He could be fucking cheerful about this – she wasn't! "Why?"

He dropped the smile. "I'm a person, Yumiko. Just because a person does a bad thing, that doesn't make them any less a person. That's what people do. And just because someone's culture is different from mine, or they don't look like 'someone from around here,' or they're a female, we're all still people. It sure as Hell wasn't a chipmunk! It was a person; yeah, a person – just like me and you, hon!"

"And you have no fucking reason to think that has anything to do with you – it's not your responsibility, freak! The world is funky, funk out!"

"Yeah, it is."

"How?"

"How? Oh, yeah, because naivety is so fucking cute! I live in this society, Yumiko, so do you – we're all a part of this, we all have an influence on what happens!"

She put a hand up. "Look, get a pill or something! This shit's depressing me, Crazy. What the fuck, man! So, what, you'd rather be living under a bridge somewhere? Guess what, freak, you'd still be apart o' this fuckin' society – you'd just be shit poor! And you'd be able to do exactly fuckin' shit about anythin' that you might care about! If you fuckin' care about this world, Crazy, then you'd know it's goin' to shit anyway, and you'd know the only thing you can do is be happy, and maybe make someone else happy, too. Fuck, B., why have _I_ gotta be the one to tell you this shit? I ain't yo fuckin' mother!"

He laughed. "I-"

"Stop it!" she told him. "We do what we can, but we're only people! Even us, B.! We're just people! God, you need to stop hating the world so much."

"I don't hate the world, I just know what people are like; I don't pretend they're something that they're not."

"You sure as Hell hate something! And, just so you've got my opinion on the matter, you have no reason to hate yourself, B. You should never hate yourself, you gotta always love yourself: if you do, if you give a shit, you naturally give a shit about the sorta person you are. You wanna be a better person, stop wasting your time hating yourself for it, people who punish themselves like that, they're just lazy asses too caught up in the past to do anything about it because – let's fucking face it! – yes, in this world, even hating yourself is _easier_ than workin' to be a better person! So don't tell me you're pissed off about the sort o' person you are, don't give me this shit! Do somethin' fuckin' about it! Life ain't meant to be easy, child, it's meant to be lived!"

She shook her head. She needed something to calm her down, why did she have to hear crap like this from Bobby, she'd always thought he was a pretty clever person, a thinking person, why'd he have to fall for this shit.

Spying the Wendy's menu, she made a beeline, deciding that she'd have chocolate: simple is still good.

She glanced across at him, standing beside her, and dropped her anger; he was just a kid, really – weren't they all? – and shuffled closer and put her arms around him and hugged him.

"You fuckin' piss me off sometimes, kid, but you're still my friend, and I worry about you, you shit. I ain't seen you in years, but I still worry. Now who's the crazy one, hey? I'll get chocolate. You gotta stop being so down on the world, darlin', there are perfectly wonderful things in the world. I digress, sweetie, there are fuckin' _great_ things, phantasmagorical things! Plenty of worthwhile junk, hon! You just gotta open your eyes, you just gotta look, chicky. So don't make me hurt you, chum, cos I'm a person, and people do crazy, crazy things!" She laughed.

"Try be happy, yeah?" She took her arms from around him. "I'm just gonna wait at the table, yeah? I might call Yuri. She likes us to keep in touch, and fuck, why not? She's my _sister_, she's my _twin_! Other half and all!" She laughed and walked away to find a table.

* * *

Walking over to the table where she was sitting, Lyle passed Yumiko her ice-cream. "I don't hate the world, Yumiko. And I don't hate myself." He took a seat across the table. "I know that the world's not all… horrible. We used to have this class together, Chiyo and I, and she just… she just looked so sad. I never talked to her, nobody did. They just… kind of accepted that she was sad, or maybe they didn't see because they didn't want to, maybe it didn't really matter that someone else was unhappy, I don't know. I just know, I didn't say anything. I might have, Yumiko. I think, once or twice, I tried to convince myself that it really would be… I mean, I wanted to talk to her, I just didn't think… I didn't think she'd want me to talk to her, I… didn't think it would make her any less sad if I did, I had no idea what I might say to her, so… I didn't."

"Stuff like that is always happening, B. We think, _Maybe_, but then we change our mind and think, _Errr, maybe not._ It's doesn't make us bad people, or self-absorbed; it's not a crime."

"No, but it's sad."

"So shit is sad, B., is that a reason not to see the shit that makes us happy?"

"No."

"There you go!"

"I don't know who is doing this, Yumiko. I… I just think this… this way, I'm doing something, I'm trying… I need…"

"Look, I'm over it, already," Yumiko told him. "It's your thing, I get it. You want us to take a look at one of these places together? You never know."

He sighed and took out his cell phone. "What's your number?"

She recited off her cell phone number and stood up, walking around the table to sit beside him. "Hey! I'm not Nancy!" she joked.

He looked at her. "You look like a Nancy to me."

"A 'Nancy' has a look, now? I thought we weren't classifying people into 'Nancys' and 'Janes' and whoevers, defining people? I thought we were all people?"

"You are a person, Yumiko, and so is Nancy. People give things names, that's just what they do. You can be 'Person' if you like?"

She waved a hand at him, frowning at her ice-cream as though it was going to do something about her mood, cheer her up somehow. "I can be Nancy. I think I can work it, chipmunk."

He smiled.

She laughed. "I knew you weren't all Depression 101 R-ocks!"

"I don't know, are there any pretty girls?"

She shook her head. "All the guys want the pretty ones, don't they?"

"What is appealing or what we think of as 'pretty' is different for everyone, Yumiko."

She laughed. "Are you joking, I'm totally for the hot guys! Superficial girl, coming through! How come you didn't get an ice-cream?"

"It's not my thing."

She stood up and leaned down to hug him again. "I've gotta run, but keep in touch, yeah? You better." She made a telephone gesture with her hand and held it up to her ear. "Call Nancy! You know you want to!" She waved. "_See you,_" she told him in Japanese. She started to walk away.

"_Goodbye._"

Turning back, she told him, "I'll say 'hi' to Yuriko and Mal for you, yeah?"

"You may as well."

"It's a plan!" She waved again, and walked away.

He put his phone away. He wasn't sure if he'd ring her or not. Maybe she'd be okay with that, maybe she wouldn't lose it and look him up in the phone book or anything. Or maybe he'd just ring her. Complicating things for other people was depressing when he cared about them, but she was right, and didn't he already believe it, he didn't live in the world alone, he had to go out, do things, meet people. If he didn't interact with other people, he started to feel less like a person himself, and that was lame because he was a person.

He rolled his eyes and took his phone out again. Maybe he'd ring Frankie, then. The worst Frankie could do was laugh at him, and hang up.

Scrolling through his Phone Book, he scrolled past 'Jack' to 'Jules.' He suppressed a sigh; Frankie would probably be out with Debbie, or in with Debbie – something with Debbie, anyway – she was his girlfriend, after all, and he was her boyfriend. She'd kill him for taking away her Frankie time, or at least yell at him very loudly. Which didn't sound so good over the phone.

Scrolling back to 'Jack,' he pressed the _call_ button. He could say 'hi,' couldn't he? It wasn't going to kill him. He highly doubted Jack would; she was probably too far away to do anything even if she had wanted to.

"Hi."


	2. Chapter 2

Yumiko made her way along the street, the shopping complex behind her growing smaller with every step. When she reached her car, parked beside the sidewalk, she reached out to pull open the door and got inside: the door had been unlocked.

Finally, she glanced over at the man waiting for her in the car, her former FBI contact. "He said he didn't do it and I believe him," she reported. "Nothing has changed, Henry."

Henry met her gaze. "Mmm? Yeah?"

"Yeah, Henry. He was confused as a kid and he's only more confused now."

"Because you know him so well from a few years of summer camp, a few shared weeks, huh!" Henry replied.

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. She pointed a finger at him darkly. "He didn't kill those girls! I've been to the crime scenes, and I told you _then_! Why aren't you hearing me, Henry? I don't know who did this – but I know it wasn't Lyle!" She felt a twinge of discomfort – she much preferred calling him Bobby – but Henry didn't know Lyle had been Bobby Bowman, and she wasn't about to enlighten him.

Everybody knew what Bobby had done.

Henry chewed his lip and tossed his chin. "Sure, if you think so. Hey, so you reckon I should just drop this?" He nodded.

She scowled. "Yeah, Henry, I think you should drop it. Start looking for the lunatic who really killed these girls!"

He laughed. Oh, she thought he wasn't _looking_, he wasn't doing _enough_! She should have known better, being what she was! She should have known!

Yumiko gave her head a shake, as though trying to shake off the weight on her chest, the weight that seemed almost to pull the colour from the world, leaving it grey and cloudy.

How could the world be anything but cloudy now? she thought. Bobby had been one of the best Empaths she'd ever known, and now, he hadn't even clued onto a single _one_ of her lies.

The first time that Henry had showed her the file with the pictures of those poor, dead girls in it, the first time he'd connected it to her friend, she'd told him then, flat out, that 'Jimmy' hadn't done it; no way had her friend killed those girls! But, inside, she'd had her doubts.

After all that they'd seen together, after all they'd been through at summer camp, she'd thought he could have done it – he could have done it, and, just maybe, maybe it was all her fault! She'd been a friend, but look what he'd done to his friend, Jimmy. Maybe he'd hated her! Maybe he'd killed those girls because they'd reminded him of her! Maybe he'd wanted her to be his girlfriend, maybe he'd wanted her to pity him more, maybe he'd been shy but who's fault was that, hers not his, surely not his.

She almost shook now, just remembering it. She'd really thought that maybe he had killed those girls.

She'd never told Bobby, but she'd told Henry about her abilities; she'd told Henry that she was a 'medium.' And then, after such a revelation, Henry had never even considered that maybe Bobby was, too, maybe that was what connected them. Summer camp was innocent, summer camp was a bit of fun – of course Henry would never suspect that summer camp hadn't been innocent and fun.

Collecting the threads of her thoughts, she tried to pull herself together.

"So how is he, how is 'Jimmy'?" Henry asked, amused and sarcastic at the same time, a tone that was all too familiar to her.

"He's just fine," she told him, just as if she'd never said a word about how confused he was earlier. Henry didn't want to hear shit like that; he wanted to hear that Bobby had done this.

She reached for her seatbelt and clicked it on. "If you don't mind, I'd like to head back to the motel."

He grinned, and started the car.

_Oh, Bobby, it will be okay. Don't do anything stupid. Hold on for me, love, hold on._

_

* * *

_

As they passed a school, she looked out at the children playing on the playground and smiled because she really wanted to cry.

When Bobby hadn't come back to summer camp, she'd thought that he would be fine, she'd felt happy for him. She'd never thought it would get worse; she'd always thought he'd be able to move on.

Every day since her escape, she'd spent every minute of it moving on. She'd tried to do good things with her ability, good things for herself, and for other people.

Now, suddenly, she was frightened that Bobby wasn't okay. Though it had only been summer camp for Bobby, he hadn't 'lived' at the facility, he'd had a real home, the facility's project leader had been his father.

The fact was that she'd never taken to Lyle Bowman, she'd never trusted him, she'd never felt the need to please him, to 'do good' the way her twin sister, Yuriko, had. She hadn't been jealous of Bobby when he'd come to them, she'd been curious, she hadn't thought that maybe he was going to take away the only meaningful male, adult attention that she got. She'd played at annoyance, she'd even played at jealous, for her sister, but she'd never felt it herself. She'd always felt that there was something different about Bobby, not just that he was a boy, but that his understanding of the world wasn't quite their understanding, maybe, it wasn't quite anyone else's; maybe he had problems.

She'd always felt older – she was older, heck – but she'd felt it. Yuriko had been before her, she was the oldest of them, she'd always been the younger one, and she'd always felt that she was, she'd always been perfectly comfortable with that. Until Bobby had come to the facility.

It hadn't happened all at once, it had been a slow realisation, at first she'd thought that she maybe didn't like him – but this wasn't real, this was false, a subconscious effort to cheer her sister up, and cheer her on: I'm_ still on your side, sis_ – then, she thought that maybe he could be a friend, maybe that was it, hey, they could be friends. It was quite a while before it struck her, _Hey, he's younger, I think… maybe I'm being stupid, stupid… Gee, it's not like I'm his mom, it's not like we've known each other for years at school…_ But that was it. That was the feeling, exactly. She felt like she cared about him, but not because she wanted to be with him, not because she had the slightest romantic feelings for him.

She'd never been in love before, she'd never had a crush on anyone, but even then she hadn't felt any disappointment when she'd realised that she didn't, and probably never would, see Bobby that way. So maybe there was no reason for it, but it was the way she felt, and she wasn't going to deny it. (She'd thought, that if she were to mention it to Yuriko, that she would say she was getting clucky. Which was totally normal, but totally usually about little kids, not other teenagers. So what the bleep?)

And then, as she'd gotten older, she'd expected the feeling to go away, or change somehow, only, it hadn't. She supposed, if she thought about it, maybe all she'd ever really been feeling was that she'd wanted a little brother, and, in the absence of one, she'd decided to appoint herself one of her own. Maybe she'd only ever wanted a family; wasn't that what everyone wanted? Wasn't that okay? Normal?

But if Bobby was like her little brother, she hadn't been much of an older sister. Even if he'd never felt that way with her, even if he'd never suspected that that was the way she felt, she'd still been a crappy older sister – because _she_ felt it!

It should have all been different! If only Bobby had waited a few years, they might all have escaped, and there'd have been no need for him to kill his friend, maybe it all would have turned out alright.

She kept thinking, _Why did I never say anything?_ And the funny thing of it was, wasn't that just what Bobby had told her he'd felt with Chiyo. She almost wondered if he did know, if he had clued onto her game, if he'd been mocking her all along, but, no, this time, she didn't think so. This time, she thought he just hadn't got it. He was moving in the opposite direction from her, she was losing him again, but this time, she wouldn't just be able to pop down to some shopping mall and oh, who should she meet there but her old friend, B.

As much as she had her doubts that she'd been a friend to him, she knew he'd always been a friend to her. Summer camp had always been a little more like real summer camp with Bobby there.

She was returned to the present when the car slowed and pulled into the parking lot of a local motel. Shaking off the shadows of the past and burden, she turned a glance at Henry.

"Try to have a pleasant day," she told him calmly, before opening the door and stepping out into the world.

"I'll see you 'round, Miko," he called out to her, from inside the car.

She nodded, perhaps they would see each other again – wasn't it always that way? – and closed the car door. She didn't stick around to watch him off, she headed for her motel room.

She just wanted to lie down and close her eyes. She didn't want to know that Jenna and Rose had stayed up too late watching DVDs; she didn't want to know that Cole had spent an hour practising what he was going to say to Marcia, how he was going to ask her out, only to decide maybe not, maybe she'd only tell him to rack off and then it wouldn't ever really be okay between them, nah, he'd just ruin things that way.

She got to her motel room and opened the door.

She headed straight for the bed and lay down, and there was Jenna, laughing at the screen, and Rose, throwing a piece of microwave popcorn at the screen, laughing too. There was Holly, jumping on the bed her mom had 'expressly' told her not to jump on; visiting mom. There was her older brother, Zach, watching her jump on the bed whilst he TXTed his best friend the latest update, calling out, "Take a pic, Hols!" and falling on the bed beside her to take a picture of them both on his cell phone. There was Steve, who always drank too much when he was feeling low; there was Steve, puking in the bathroom from too much alcohol, and Steve, sleeping on the bathroom floor. There was Rose, telling Jenna that she was going to ask Ian from school out on Monday, she was finally going to get up that courage; there was Jenna, feeling suddenly drained of life, oh Ian, Ian who she liked so much, but oh, oh Rose liked him, too. There, sleeping through it all, was Jenna's older brother, Luke, visiting family but putting up in a motel room with a blaring telly and two teenaged girls eating popcorn and drinking soda and laughing, until the revelation, until the sudden lack of words, and then, later, a quiet television: Rose sleeps on floor, on one of the camping mats they'd brought with them for the occasion; Jenna doesn't join her friend, she sleeps with her brother, instead. She wants to cry, but not in front of her friend.

Yumiko opened her eyes and brushed her tears away, turning over on the mattress. She closed her eyes, telling herself that eventually she would fall asleep, eventually, it was going to happen.

Now, she faced the window. It was too bright. She turned back to the wall; it was actually a bit cool in the room, but she'd be damned if she was getting up now to do anything about it. She was staying in bed; she'd warm up on her own, thank you, she wasn't beholden to the heater!

She just wished Yuriko were with her.


End file.
